Facebook removes 810 accounts, pages over 'inauthentic' behavior

Oct. 11 (UPI) -- In its latest effort to combat misinformation and discord online, social media giant Facebook announced Thursday it removed 810 accounts and pages from its platform.

The company said in a blog post the accounts "have consistently broken our rules against spam and coordinated inauthentic behavior." It previously announced the removal of similar accounts in July and August.

Facebook shared some details of the activity it found problematic. In all, the company removed 559 pages and 251 accounts.

The accounts and pages, often using fake identities, posted what the company said was a "massive" amount of content to funnel traffic to affiliated websites. Some were able to deceive Facebook users into thinking the content they posted was more popular than it actually was, Facebook said.

"Others were ad farms using Facebook to mislead people into thinking that they were forums for legitimate political debate," Facebook said.

In 2017, Facebook said more than 125 million people were potentially exposed to Russia-linked content leading up to the 2016 presidential election.

In February 2018, the U.S. Justice Department indicted 13 Russians and three Russian groups it accused of using fake identities to build a U.S. following on social media and sow distrust for American politicians. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said at the time the effort amounted to "information warfare" against the U.S.